Thursday, December 27, 2012

IFBB Pro Brooke Erickson was not only overweight once, but also underweight. "I have spent the past decade fighting the body image battle- at my heaviest I was over 180lbs and at my smallest I was a little under 90lbs." ......."My biggest goal is to lead, motivate, and inspire those around me- and most importantly be a good role model to my daughters."

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Beautiful strongwoman and acrobat Lillian Leitzel was born Alitza Pelikan in Breslau, Germany on January 2, 1892 in a family of circus performers. Her father was a Hungarian army officer and theater performer. Her mother was a Czech circus acrobat. She weighed just 95 Lbs and 4’9" tall. Unlike other strongwomen, this little lady was famous by her inconceivable acrobatic numbers which required literally herculean strength.

Although she had been well-educated and had prepared to pursue a career as a concert pianist, she joined her mother's aerobatic circus group, the Leamy Ladies. In 1910, she came to the United States with the circus troupe and performed with Barnum and Bailey. The group later dissolved and its member returned to Europe, but Leitzel continued to attempt to perform in the American vaudeville circuit. In South Bend, Indiana, she was seen by an agent of the Ringling Brothers who offered her a contract. When Ringling and Barnum and Bailey merged, she became a huge star and a headline performer for the circus.

Leitzel's act included one-armed plunges, momentarily dislocating the shoulder during each plunge. She would flip her body over her shoulder repeatedly, sometimes hundreds of times in a feat of endurance, encouraging the audience to count each one in unison. She was best known for her flirting rapport with the audience.

She was also famous for her demanding personality and temper. Although pursued by many wealthy suitors, she married a series of circus individuals and never had any children. Her last marriage was in 1928 with the circus trapeze performer Alfredo Codona. On February 13, 1931, she fell to the ground from her rigging while performing in Copenhagen, Denmark when the swivel that held the rope in place crystallized and snapped. She and Codona had been performing in Europe separately, and he rushed to Copenhagen. They boarded a train to return to Berlin where Codona had a commitment. However, she died on February 15, two days after the fall, aged 39.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

By Greycat20: Legions of female muscle fans enjoy photos and movies of real life female body builders. But there are limits to how muscular an actual human form can be. To satisfy the demand for fantasy female muscular forms which are far more extreme than any actual woman can be, a number of art forms have sprung up.

Some of these art forms are non electronic in nature - paintings and sketches of women with fabulously muscular physiques. Other imagery of incredibly muscled women falls into the category of morphed and photoshopped images, which take actual images of real life muscular women and enhance their musculature into the realm of the fantastic.

And yet another category of enhanced female muscle art is that of 3D Muscle Women renders. This article will briefly go over the current landscape of rendered fem-muscle, its history, and will use a simple example to illustrate the workflow for making a female muscle render.

Rendering for the Masses
Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) is the term used for the creation of imagery using computer wireframe models. So unlike the altering of an actual photograph done with Photoshop for example, CGI involves generating an image completely from scratch in the virtual world. Rather than using a real life camera, with CGI the image creator is using virtual cameras, virtual lighting, and wireframe models to create a purely computer generated image.

Initially rendered CGI imagery was the playground of the rich, as both the software and hardware to do rendering was prohibitively expensive. But the endless possibilities of CGI came within reach of the masses with the introduction of a software package called Poser around the year 2000.

Poser was priced for a few hundred dollars and made it possible for amateur users to create computer generated imagery on a hobbyist's budget.

Many vendors of content for Poser sprang up, selling wireframe mesh models of buildings, animals, vehicles, and most importantly for the female muscle fan, women. Initially the wireframe models were low resolution, consisting of only small numbers of polygons, and looked somewhat blocky. But as time went on the models became more and more detailed and realistic, with higher and higher number of polygons.

Victoria 3 and She Freak
For the muscle women / amazon enthusiast, an important milestone was reached when a company named Daz 3D released two products to be used with Poser that made it possible to create reasonably high detailed renders of super muscular women.

In 2003, Daz 3D began selling a very popular human female wireframe model named Victoria 3. Vicki 3 was an immediate superstar and hit with Poser fans because of her highly detailed curves and realistic look.

Soon after, Daz 3D released an add-on product for Victoria 3 called She Freak. The She Freak kit augmented Vicki 3's standard female curves into a super muscular form. And the Poser software made it easy for the user to select how muscular they wanted Vicki 3 plus She Freak to be, with the sliding of the mouse. Want a moderately muscled female? Slide the bar just a bit. Want a hyper muscled hulking mountain of a woman? Slide the bar to its maximum setting.

For many years Victoria 3 plus the She Freak addon were used by countless female muscle 3D hobbyists to generate loads of muscle women renders that showed up on websites such as www.deviantart.com and in comics and on paysites.

An Even Cheaper Way to Start Rendering: Daz Studio
For female muscle fans who wanted to try their hand at rendering with an absolute minimum of cash outlay, a welcome development occurred with the release of Daz Studio.

As mentioned above, Poser was the first software package to bring CGI into the realm of affordability, being priced at only a couple of hundred dollars. And it is a powerful package that remains in use by many people today (as of this writing, the most recent release of the software is Poser 8).

But the company Daz 3D, which had released many wireframe models for Poser including Victoria 3, realized that the price point of Poser was still keeping some hobbyists from getting into the rendering game. Daz 3D was making a living selling content for Poser, and to expand the market of potential customers they decided to create a software product compatible with Poser that would be free of charge to acquire.

That product is called Daz Studio. The basic version of Daz Studio is free of charge to download, and is for the most part completely compatible with all content that can be used in Poser. There are some advanced features that Poser has which Daz Studio doesn't (which is why there is still a healthy and thriving market for purchasing Poser), but for the hobbyist who wants to get into rendering on the cheap and start creating content with a minimum of investment, Daz Studio provides a fantastic way to do that.

Current State of the Art : Victoria 4 and She Freak 4
As of this writing, the most popular wireframe models in use for creating female muscle renders are Victoria 4 and an addon product named She Freak 4. The basic versions of these two products are available completely free of charge from http://www.daz3d.com

Victoria 4 is a high resolution wireframe model of a human female. And She Freak 4 is an addon that allows modification of Victoria 4's form to be highly muscled.

Here are a couple of screenshots that show the workflow in Daz Studio of creating a rendered image of a muscle woman using Victoria 4 and She Freak 4:

Jumping Off Points for Learning More
I've provided a very high level overview of 3D rendering of muscle women using products like Poser and Daz Studio. I'll conclude by mentioning some places where you can learn more.

There are many 3D Muscle Women Artists on Deviant Art who have free galleries that exhibit various styles of the 3D Muscle Woman rendered form. Tigersan, Angel Uriel, Stone 3D, Robtbo, Grisse and Freedom 981 are a few of the many 3D Female Muscle artists out there that you can take a look at to get a feel for what 3D rendered muscle woman art is like.

While this article focused on Poser and Daz Studio, I should mention that there are many other products out there that can be also used for female muscle 3D rendering, including Cinema 4D, Maya, and 3D Studio Max.

If you want to start trying your hand at creating 3D rendered muscle women, I did write an article back in 2008 that you may find worth perusing.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

"Jackie
Paisley was once a top competitor and role model in the fitness
industry. A former IFBB professional female bodybuilder during the
1980s, Jackie achieved the ultimate honor by winning the prestigious
1989 Ms. International overall. I doubt the thought ever crossed her
mind that one day she would literally be competing for her life.

With a degree from Arizona State University, a certified
personal trainer, nutritionist, dancer and professional bodybuilder
with over two decades of experience, this woman is no stranger to
obstacles. My favorite quote from Jackie is, “Every truly great
accomplishment is at first impossible!”

In 2011, after months
of illness and misdiagnosis from doctors, she went through a seven-hour
surgery to remove adhesions and eight lymph nodes filled with silicone
due to breast enhancement done during her competitive years. Until her
personal experiences with ‘silicone toxicity’ Jackie didn’t consider the
consequences as the medical community expressed such safety. After the
surgery, the effects left her previously sculpted muscles and strength,
diminished and extremely weak. In addition to unexpected physical
complications, resulting in months of recovery, Jackie also cares for
her eight year old special needs son (Neo).

The expenses have
overwhelmed Jackie and although many of her friends have tried to help
get her back on track, she struggles to make the basic payments of rent,
electricity, and food. As a proud and independent woman, Jackie shies
away from asking for help. Through all these complications though she
remains positive about her recovery and has used her knowledge to
identify “The Genetic Code” to help others become healthy through herbal
supplements rather than medication. This is how I first met Jackie
several months ago. I am a bikini competitor and athlete looking to make
my mark in the fitness industry. The training, diet and supplements
alone begin to take its toll on the body for many athletes over time.
Jackie was able to utilize her skills and personal experiences to help
me identify, treat and work through the different systems so I can get
back to my goals. I still have a couple months to my recovery but I can
already tell a major difference.

What I am asking is for help
(see below Links), on behalf of a woman who has impacted the fitness
industry for years and is continuing to do so. All she needs is a
spotter to help minimize the heavy weight until she can readjust and
push
forward."
- Allison Pease

I’ve shared busty glamour model Wendy Fiore before, but you can never have “too much” of wendy in the gym. She’s actually slimmed down and become quite fit while keeping the large size of what she's famous for.